The What and Why of Outsourcing

Do you remember reading about the US software developer who outsourced his entire job to China for a sixth of what he was being paid last year? He was found out when the company he worked for looked into who had been connecting to their system from China. His boss wasn’t amused and he was sacked immediately but I’m sure his ingenuity is being put to good use elsewhere.

I’m not going to suggest you copy him but I think he was onto something!

You can go further if you’re part of a team. Outsourcing is like creating an instant team without any of the costs or time involved in recruiting or employing other people.

What tasks can you outsource?

Businesses have always outsourced certain jobs to bookkeepers, accountants or IT experts and these days, as more and more people set up their own businesses, outsourcing is becoming more widespread.

When I Googled the tasks you can outsource, I found well over 200! Here are the most common ones:

Diary management

Call handling

Email management

Social media

Bookkeeping

Transcription

PR

Online research

Travel arrangements

Events planning

Why outsource tasks?

There are lots of benefits from outsourcing:

1. Save time

Yes, we can all do admin but you can save lots of time by paying someone else to it for you – someone who may be quicker at it. If you work with someone who’s got years of relevant experience they’re bound to know a quicker, more efficient way of getting things done.

2. Save money

If you can charge out your time at a higher rate or an hour of your work is worth more to the business than you can pay someone else to do a certain role, it makes sense to outsource it.

3. Bring new skills into your business

Outsourcing allows you to access skills that you might not have, you might not be good at or you might not enjoy. Isn’t that why we all have bookkeepers?!

4. Grow your business

By outsourcing tasks that don’t have to be done by you, you can spend your time doing the bits that only you can do and grow your business.

5. Support the economy

Employing other people has much wider benefits than just you and your business. By using other businesses and helping them grow you’re supporting the economy.

6. Modern working

These days, as both parents tend to work and people want to balance their work and home lives, workplaces are evolving and allowing their employees to have more flexible working arrangements. If you can reduce the amount of work you need to do you can spend that time with your family or doing the school run, driving to dentist appointments, buying new uniforms, packing swimming bags…

If you work for yourself there are never enough hours in the day to do everything you want to but it is possible to get some time back and make your job more flexible. I think it’s great that more and more people are reaping the rewards from outsourcing, it’s a win/win as far as I can see.

How about you, do you outsource any tasks or roles? How’s it helped your business?